Make your job easy, talk to people in a language they understand. Their own passions and interests

Reach the 'Hard to Reach'
Sellers of crisps, alcohol, confectionery and sugary soft
drinks all systematically use popular culture to push their
products. Public health also need to use social market
research to find out what interests different target groups.
Then use everything from romantic novels to computer
games or crosswords to engage them around health. This
already happens to an extent of course. In this example the
English Department of Health use comedy to look at alcohol
issues.


Engage people through their own interests
Sex and Drugs and Rock... and Health is a website dedicated to using social marketing and edutainment (entertainment/education) to tackle health inequalities and promote health services. This is particularly important in a time of cutbacks when every penny counts. Why waste money trying to engage people in ways that they don't find relevant, interesting or fun? It also fits in well with other current approaches to public health such as resilience or social norms. 

The site shows how to use social marketing to find out what different target groups are interested in and then suggests ways of linking these to health. Detailed examples include the use of
* Pop music
* Comedy
* Magazines
* Romantic novels
* Comics
* Crosswords
* Fashion
* Computer games
* Football

Social marketing can also be a way of finding out what messages etc to include in the various formats.

The approach may be particularly useful with 'hard to reach' underserved groups.

The web pages are backed up by a range of PDFs including the main document that is 180 pages long. This can be downloaded at the bottom of most pages.

If you've done any work in this field yourself please share it via this site, so that a pool of expertise can be created. It is also a chance to network with others around the approach.

If you find the site useful please link to it and tell others about it. Thank you.

What health and social marketing professionals say about the site
* Very interesting new ideas re popular culture, social marketing and health promotion. I am sure that that there is a lot in what you are saying about tapping into what really moves and motivates people. (Social marketing expert, London.)

* I visited your website... It has some interesting applications and suggestions for addressing health issues. (Social marketing specialist, Jamaica.)

* What a good idea. (Social marketing company manager, UK.)

* ... your PDFs are very helpful. (Health improvement specialist, UK.)

* I think your website is fantastic. I would like to tell everyone about it. (Community health development worker, UK.)

* It's great to hear about your work! I have also passed it on to colleagues who are responsible for public involvement in planning and commissioning as I think they would find it useful too. Keep it up. (NHS public involvement manager, NHS.)

Using popular culture in other areas of health
You might also be interested in Rubin, C. 2008. Popular Culture In Counselling, Psychotherapy, And Play-based interventions. New York: Springer Publishing Company.

I also have another website, Inspiration Jukebox, that maybe useful to counsellors, as well as health workers and the public. Click here to see it.

(For references click here and links click here.)

To download my whole 180 page report on using popular culture to tackle health  inequalities click here
http://www.sexanddrugsandrockandhealth.com/userimages/newPCTotalDocument.pdf

To simply download the summary, recommendations etc click here
http://www.sexanddrugsandrockandhealth.com/userimages/newPCsection1Summaryetc.pdf

To download the PDF software to be able to download these files click here
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.htm